Hollandaise Sauce may well be from Holland (or Friesland… or Flevoland… or Zeeland… or Gelderland….)

Snow – and don't the English just love it!  I've often heard it said that the weather is usually top of the list of conversational topics when you don't really have anything to talk about.  For the English, this also includes complaining about the weather.  It's either too hot, too cold, too rainy and don't even get them started about the snow – the slightest chance of the white stuff falling from the sky and they start to panic buy, worry about how on earth they will get to work, and then on arrival, they will distract themselves with weather forecasts and glances out of the window and the constant worrying about how they are going to get home.  Admittedly, due to the scarcity of snow actually ever falling (let alone settling), particularly in Lahndahn Tahn, the freak reactions are perhaps a little more understandable.  However, you'd think that the English have no real memory of just how rare and how short lived the snow experience actually ends up being.

Clearly snow brings out the madman in me

We built a snow man.  Initially, I just made a very large snowball.  Having grown up in Australia I should have absolutely NO knowledge of how to do this, but many years ago I went on a school skiing trip to Mount Bulla in Australia and I, being incredibly unpopular as a child, was always quite desperate to make an impression or just to make some friends.  I tried this by creating a mix tape of all my brother's coolest music (Def Leopard, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and various other heavy (ha!) metal bands.  I later realized that these were just Metal Pop (maybe not Iron Maiden, they are probably best described as Metal Opera) but at the time, they were the only ticket I had to the cool crowd .  Quiet Riot's cover of "Cum on Feel the Noize" eventually ended up having this mix tape confiscated (by Mrs White, a rather hip and cool young teacher who (a) was probably a little disgusted that I was so desperate to actually make friends with half of the bitches and little thugs that I thought then were the epitome of 'coolness' and (b) probably really wanted the tape for herself, as I was a bit of a genius in mixing and my brother's collection was pretty darn eclectic if I do say so myself).

The other way I managed to be noticed was that I was the only child on the trip who actually had the knowledge of how to create a very large snowman.  Whilst all the girls were busy trying to pat one into shape (it just doesn't work) I recalled the lessons that I learned from hours spent reading my brother's Archie comics.  For the UK readers, this is not something that they will be familiar with.  Archie is, quite simply, a US icon and his friends, Reggie, Veronica, Betty and Jughead lived in a part of America where it snowed every winter.

How to build a snowman (or, as I mentioned earlier, make very large snowballs) is actually quite easy.  Simply pat together a snowball and then roll the ball in the snow.  As it rolls, it accumulates more snow and grows larger and larger.  It takes quite a while to build up, but there comes a tipping point where all of a sudden you have reached the correct weight and size and the ball starts to grow exponentially.

This is not the time to push the ball down a hill (unlike in the Archie comics where it grows to the size of a small barn and manages to capture all the characters on the way down).  The girls I was so desperate to get noticed and acceptance from eventually realised that the only way they were ever going to be able to create a snowman of any great size was if they were nice to me.  Momentarily.  Then once I gave them my massive snowball so they could use it for a base, they quickly went back to being nasty to me again.  Childhood.  Makes you wonder how some of us ever survive it.

So, of course, the most exciting thing about waking up to a snow day is knowing that you are going to need a high calorie breakfast in order to get through the day.  All that flinging of snow at each other requires massive amounts of energy and this is something that can only be fuelled by a high protein and fat laden meal.  Carbs are necessary (fad diets that disallow them should be REJECTED COMPLETELY because, quite frankly, the last time in recorded history that we relied solely on protein to fuel our bodies was… oh…. let me think about that…. erm… that would be never, wouldn't it?) but they should always be consumed in moderation alongside a similar amount of protein.  This isn't about weight loss or gain – this is about FUEL.

Susie with her Double Ds

I woke up wishing I was in New York.  We have the most beautiful friend in the whole ding-dong world who refers to David and myself as her "Double Ds".  Once, when she asked us to accompany her to New York to celebrate her 40^th birthday and we declined because we were so broke and in debt up to our eyeballs, she insisted on paying for our airfare and accommodation.  This girl, whom I met whilst working at one the UK's top law firms (pretty much where I meet all of my wonderful friends here in the UK) was a £10 pom (as she describes it) – this is basically somebody from England who, whilst Australia was having it's "White Immigration Only Policy" pretty much asked people from the "motherland" to come to Australia for next to nothing.

We have yet to find a way to pay her back, but David and I both consider it an investment, not a gift.  We will, one day, surprise her with a very special gift indeed.  (And no Sue, the night out at a Watford Haunted Mansion being scared silly (emphasis on the silly) does NOT count as a very special gift – it has to be MUCH bigger than that).

Now New York is famous for it's bagels (in 2009 I was not yet diagnosed with gluten intolerance) and ordering a bagel from a local deli is a true delight in New York.  The filling (egg mayo for me, of course!) is SO thick that the bagel is stacked as high as the cup of coffee that accompanies it.  Your mouth often has difficulty in actually stretching that wide to accommodate the bite (oddly enough, mine did not….) and most New Yorkers sort of pick the filling out of the edges…. and eat it in stages.  It IS something that just HAS to be done whilst in the big apple.  I'm hoping that next time I'm in New York somebody will have had the nous to have opened a gluten free bagel bar.  Only in America (actually, please EVERYWHERE – somebody open up gluten free bakeries and delis EVERYWHERE!!!!).

Sue is the female version of me - she is the type
of girl who will start skipping down a New York
street simply because I ask her too and won't
even question why

For me, the most delicious Deli breakfast in New York and the most perfect hangover food AND the most scrumptious recipe for gearing up for a cold winters walk through central park has got to be smoked salmon, poached eggs, all served on toast in a bowl shaped plate where everything is then literally swimming in hollandaise sauce.  Now I won't eat bacon, and I must admit, pig is one of those animals that you just CANNOT get me to eat willingly.  If we were all starving and there was a pig and me left, that pig and I would starve together (actually, probably, the pig would eat me before I ate it but I'd like to think we'd die together, cuddling one another).

New York is famous for it's Jewishness which is why smoked salmon is served in Delis as a breakfast accompaniment as an alternative to bacon, but prior to that Yiddish culture it was first called New Amsterdam, because originally it was settled by Dutch immigrants.  Perhaps this is why I have always believed that hollandaise had something to do with the Netherlands and that the New York Deli's love of serving this sauce as a breakfast accompaniment is in homage to it's original founders.  In fact, the recipe for Hollandaise sauce has historically been noted that it first appeared in a Dutch cookbook around the 16^th Century, prior to it appearing in a French one! France, of course, now claims it as one of its five most important sauces and pretends it owns the recipe and always did.

We were always taught at school in Australia – erroneously, of course, that the country now known as the Netherlands was actually called "Holland".  Holland had dykes and windmills and tulips and clogs (and indeed the region of the Netherlands that does have some of these things is known as Holland – it's actually just a state or a district of the Netherlands).  Funnily enough, Australia was once known as New Holland, because prior to the English 'discovering' it, the Dutch did – but the Dutch only found the Western barren part of the country (now home to Perth and the area that is currently being mined (raped) by a woman called Gina Rinearse (well that's what David calls her).  But I digress – I woke up and turned to David's and declared rather confidently "I'm thinking poached eggs and hollandaise for breakfast!"

I've made hollandaise sauce before.  For my 40^th birthday party I had 2 dinner parties (I couldn't actually accommodate ALL my friends around the table at the same time) and hollandaise was served with fried chicken strips for that event.  I knew the sauce was labour intensive but I also knew that the effort was well worth it.  I don't own a Delia cookbook because, well, nobody has ever given me one but I do often read her recipes online.  Delia talks about how easy it is to make this sauce now that we own food processors…. well I wouldn't know because I haven't owned a food processor for quite some time.

We do own a hand blender (and a very cheap crappy jug blender because a cute South African Scallywag broke my beautiful glass jug blender a couple of Halloweens ago) but we don't own a processor – mainly because I'm never sure which one is actually the best one to actually purchase and also because I think that if Julia Child and countless other folk managed without one for so many years, then I really should be able to as well.  (I do have my eye on a Vitamix blender, and when we have a spare £400 I will purchase this crème de la crème of blenders.  I mean, it is so brilliant, you can grind your own flour from whole grains….!!!)

So back to the hollandaise.  I thought I better check a few recipe books to get the complete lowdown on how to make it (after all, it is a very old sauce, and that means there are countless varieties out there).  My favourite little book for sauces is one that is published by Penguin and is exclusively a cookbook of sauce recipes (US readers, try here).  This is the one that I used for my 40^th birthday and it actually contains a few different versions.  It was written by Ambrose Heath who was a culinary journalist who wrote for the Guardian and Daily Mirror and who died about 5 months prior to my birth.  I also checked out Larousse's encyclopaedic tome and there is one recipe for Hollandaise in there, called the "old version", that requires you to add a couple of tablespoons of Allemande sauce (as well as lots of egg yolks and masses of butter). 

 What is Allemande sauce, I wondered?  I thought I better check for this one, as having attempted several times to self-teach myself the French language, I was aware that 'Alleman' is the word that the French use for Germans (the southern Germanic tribe that bordered the North-Eastern parts of France were known as the Alleman tribe, so you can see the etymology of the word here).  Interestingly Germans don't use Germany to describe their country.  In fact, the word "German" has no Germanic roots at all, it's not a part of their language – unlike Alleman, which roughly translated in German means "All the people".

So here I am thinking that Allemande sauce must be Germanic in origin.  But to my shock and horror I have discovered that this is NOT the case.  It is French.  French?  And what about Espagnol sauce?  Not Spanish – but French!!!  Allemande sauce is famous for being THE white sauce that beats ALL white sauces.  Espagnol sauce is THE classic dark sauce.  You see what the French have done here?  I was SHOCKED!!  How racist (but sadly, what white culture does NOT have a history of racism clumsily hidden (sometimes not even hidden!) in their past.  And as for Hollandaise sauce, well, if the French truly did invent it, perhaps they thought the Dutch were all buttery and slippery customers?  Or lardy? I really have no idea -  and yet again, I digress….

In the end I went with Larousse's classic "old" recipe.  It states that you need 5 egg yolks, which you whisk together with a little bit of nutmeg, salt and pepper.  I've seen Nigella separate eggs by cracking them into the palms of her hands and then slurping the yolk from one palm to another (I was actually taught by my mother to carefully break the egg into two halves, and then slop the yolk from one shell half to the other but when I saw Nigella's method I immediately felt something within me go 'ping' and I thought interesting…. – the only problem with this method is that you end up with slimey hands (something my mother was not into?) but the downside to my mother's method is that the cracked shell can sometimes split the yolk (and, depending on the freshness of your eggs, sometimes they don't break so uniformly into two perfect halves). Also, if you're making meringues or any kind of dish that requires only egg whites, you cannot have even a smidgeon of egg yolk in the white or when beating them they simply will not firm up into lovely peaks (but instead will just become a frothy mess).  I wanted to try the slimey hand method for the first time (I mean, there is a sink in my kitchen and a towel nearby so it's not like I will be left with slimey hands for too long) and I was astounded at how easy it was to do the separations.  Huh – definitely the method to use when teaching kids (again, Mrs Foster was NOT in favour of this method – way too disgusting for her liking). 

 

In a Bain Marie saucepan where the water within is almost but not quite boiling (I use a small saucepan dangling in a larger saucepan which contains the water) you add the yolky mix, whisking constantly (and literally NEVER stopping this whisking process until the sauce is done – it requires endurance this recipe).  Then you add half a pound of butter in very small bits.  (I know, right??? Half a pound!!  See what I mean by lardy?) This will give you enough sauce for 4 generous portions.  Prior to starting this process I sent a facebook message to our son upstairs (hey, it beats shouting at them up the stairs) and told him I was intending on making this delectable treat. I still hadn't received a reply by the time I started.  Whatever you do, when you want to make a dish with this sauce, you must always make the sauce first – it can take you up to an hour to make it (depending on how you whisk, of course – I think men, who generally overdevelop their 'whisking' hand [as we'll call it] are better suited to this than women, but am sure some ladies can whisk as well as any man….).  Remove the small saucepan from the heated water often (and the water should be kept to near boiling temperature, but never actually boil), in fact, I recommend that you lean towards the side of caution here – if the yolks curdle, the sauce is pretty much ruined, so you must avoid actually cooking them.  Having started slimey, I continued slimey and whilst whisking vigorously using my whisking hand I broke off small chunks of butter with my left hand and threw them into the mix.  Don't worry if your sauce does not thicken immediately – what you really want is for the yolks to be completely merge with the butter first anyway and the only way to ensure this happens uniformly throughout the whole half a pound is to be very patient, and to constantly whisk.  I really feel like I'm burning most of the calories I'm about to consume purely by the constant whisking that is required.

Drenched with Hollandaise

Having nearly made the sauce, I could now concentrate on the eggs.  I noted that Zack had received and read my message (love that "tick" thing on Facebook, it's like a read receipt, but without the annoying email that starts to clog up your inbox if you have this setting switched on your email app) but he hadn't responded.  He later told me that he had fallen asleep again and that he was interested in the dish (minus the smoked salmon of course – he's just not a lover of fish unless it's battered and fried).  I put a large pan of water and added a dash of vinegar to it and brought it to the boil.  I always use a large Wok for poaching eggs - this just allows me to cook up to half a dozen eggs easily enough without overcrowding the pan. I had to use balsamic vinegar, which is not really recommended because of its tendency to stain rather the egg whites a little darkly but as I only discovered the cider vinegar at the back of the shelf after I had already splooshed in the balsamic (it really does pay to get your ingredients ready sometimes….).

Just before you crack the eggs in, the heat is turned down and the watery vinegary mix is brought to a nice simmering temperature.  Swirl the water to create a mini whirlpool (this does not need to be done vigorously) and then carefully crack in eggs – I usually serve 2-3 per person.  Toast your toast (or bagels, or muffins) - 2 slices per person (in a toaster, or under the grill) and DO NOT BUTTER THEM!  I mean, you've just used half a pound in your hollandaise! Layer on the smoked salmon (or bacon, if you MUST eat the pig that I love so dearly) onto the toast and then spoon on your eggs when they are done (the whites should be firm, but the yolks should still be slightly runny - not that you'll easily be able to tell if this is the case…). 

Whilst all this is going on, ensure your hollandaise is not setting completely by whisking every now and then and removing from the heat (and then returning… oh the tediousness of it all – but honest it will be worth it).   Finally, drench everything with a generous portion of hollandaise.  Everything should be literally swimming in the sauce on the plate.  Top with a sprig or two of parsley and devour.  Take your time (David wolfed his down) because you should savour it and appreciate the cook who made you this sauce – they won't be doing it again for approximately three months I am sure!

As an vegetarian alternative try thinly sliced and char grilled smoked tofu.  There are vegetarian "bacon" equivalents out there but like Ron in Parks & Recreation, I kind of think that these woody pieces of cardboard really deserve to be binned rather than served up.  Even Hollandaise will not be able to make these things delicious.